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Premier League soccer club Everton is exploring a potential sale less than two years after The Friedkin Group acquired the team while it was in dire financial straits.
The club announced Friday that it has hired Moelis & Co. to help explore “new investment options,” including the “potential sale of a controlling interest.”
When Friedkin acquired Everton in December 2024, the team “faced significant financial uncertainty and challenges both on and off the pitch,” the statement says. “The immediate priority was to provide the stability, investment and support needed to secure the Club’s future, including helping to bring the long-promised stadium to completion for its deserving supporters.”
The club says its financial situation has stabilized, and touted its new stadium in Liverpool. In its most recent financial disclosure, issued in March, Everton said it has made “substantial financial progress,” including a “record” turnover of 196.7 million pounds, an increase of 9.8 million pounds compared to the prior year (turnover is a U.K. term akin to total revenue in the U.S.).
“We will only entertain interest from parties who we strongly believe will be the right stewards to take the Club forward and build on the momentum that has been established,” the statement says.
A source familiar with the matter tells Front Office Sports that Friedkin isn’t necessarily going to exit the team entirely, even if a deal ends up being reached for a controlling stake. Friedkin acquired roughly 98.8% of Everton in 2024, meaning it could sell a controlling stake and still have a significant holding.
Friedkin feels it has done its job of stabilizing the team and ensuring there was adequate financing to finish the new stadium, the source says, and it now faces a choice: commit more capital to take Everton to the next stage of its development, or bring in a new investor and potentially realize a profit on a club that could now command a higher valuation than it did in 2024.
“This is a very different process from when Friedkin bought the team,” the source says. “Everton was in a very difficult place.”
Friday’s news came as a shock to John Textor, a well-known player in the soccer world who has held ownership positions in teams like London’s Crystal Palace, France’s Olympique Lyonnais, and Brazil’s Botafogo. Textor, whose soccer empire is at risk after his holding company, Eagle Football Holdings, was placed under the control of a U.K. restructuring administrator earlier this year, came close to buying Everton in 2024.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he told FOS when asked about Friday’s Everton news. “There’s something very wrong with this story.”
Textor said Dan Friedkin, chairman and CEO of The Friedkin Group, is a “guy that likes owning football clubs,” so he’s surprised to see him seeking to sell so soon. Friedkin has a net worth of about $12.6 billion, according to Forbes, making him the world’s 262nd-richest person. His company also owns AS Roma and AS Cannes.
Friday’s news comes not long after Everton added multiple new minority investors. In April 2025, Christopher Sarofim, a part-owner of the NFL’s Houston Texans, purchased a minority stake in Everton. That same month, Jason Kidd, a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, also joined the club as a minority investor.
Everton is in the middle of the 2026–27 regular season, which began in August and ends in May. The club is currently in seventh place out of 20 teams with two wins, three draws, and zero losses.
Last season, Everton finished in 13th place for the second consecutive year, an improvement from its 15th- and 17th-place finishes in the two seasons before that.
A representative for Everton declined further comment. Representatives for Sarofim and Kidd did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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